Chapter 3: Mother Doesn't Know Best
The pink light spat Ben out onto shag carpet the color of cotton candy, the world tilting as his new, manicured hands flew to the unfamiliar weight of teased blonde curls. "Tiffany, honey, your friend is here!" chirped a woman's voice from the doorway, holding a plate of cookies that smelled like burnt sugar and nostalgia. Ben's scream of horror came out as a flawless, high-pitched, "Oh my god, Mother, you are, like, so embarrassing!" The woman just beamed, placing the cookies on a neon vanity, her eyes glazing right over the boy trapped inside her daughter's reflection. Behind her smile, in the vanity mirror's crack, Ben watched Tiffany's ghostly form wink back at him from his own bedroom, now impossibly far away.
Her shimmering face pressed closer to the glass on his side. "Benji-boy, you listen up," her voice was a poisonous honey in his mind. "You figure out who did this to me, live it ‘til you find the answer." His reflection in her mirror began to blur, its edges softening into Tiffany's familiar, smirking features. "Or I start wearing your skin for realsies, and trust me, your mom will love the new, improved you."
Ben’s borrowed heart hammered against Tiffany’s ribcage, a frantic bird in a pink cage. “I—what—,” he stammered, but the words melted into a breathy, feminine whimper that wasn't his. The lavender-scented room constricted, the walls pulsing to the beat of his terror. “Try one, sweetie, they’re still warm,” her mother urged, blissfully unaware as the plate hovered nearer. A cold, invisible presence trailed a fingernail down the back of his neck, and the world went gray at the edges.